Courage is often the first thing required when one is struggling to think for oneself.
One must be very watchful and very honest with oneself not to allow loyalty to a leader or a group or a doctrine trump one’s sense of integrity and right action. But sticking to such a conviction to do with one’s integrity can be costly—it takes courage. In the group all those years, why did I not stand up and think for myself when, on occasion, I sensed, however faintly, that things were not quite right? I was so intent on pleasing others–my new colleagues–that I dug my spade with the Children of God too readily. I too quickly hesitated to speak when I had questions, no matter how vague they were. I was too easily pushed by fears. I feared what others would say, that they wouldn’t think as well of me as they did before. I feared being excluded, being condemned for not “getting it,” for failing to believe. I feared I’d be called “a problem case,” or that I’d “backslide.” We had all sorts of terms which made doubting the group or questioning its leader seem to be horrible disloyalty leading to the worst of fates. I learned to fear where doubts might lead, so I repressed them. But I venture to say that perhaps first of all I didn’t act as I should have because I lacked courage.
Courage is not to have no fear, but rather it’s to do what is right under the circumstances in spite of one’s fears. One may not be aware how much courage is needed when the pressure to go one way is very intense and when one wants the approval of those we are about to resist; thus a person needs to cultivate a readiness to understand when a situation requires courage. You can ask yourself, “What do I need first of all right now?” The answer may be wisdom, or it may be a sense of what is just, and these certainly are often needed, and in a big way, too. But it could be very well be that even before these are called for, courage is needed.
I have read that the ancient Greeks believed that courage was the first of the virtues; if one wanted to be excellent in any respect, if one wished to possess any of the great virtues, courage was required first of all. The great Aristotle—“the Philosopher,” he was often called, named eleven virtues constituting the character of the just person, but he said the first of all is courage. Perhaps this is because arriving at any of the others necessitates the bravery to act. Whatever else it is, then, courage at least this: a willingness to be out there on your own, regardless of opposition and every challenge. That can be scary, indeed. But what fuels such a willingness?
Courage isn’t being rash and running foolishly into danger, and it’s certainly not running away in the face of fear. When we are tempted to give way to fear—and courage is the virtue that so much pertains to fear—we so much need to remember that this is the time when we must have recourse to the highest, noblest, truest thing we have known—this is what fuels the willingness to stand against fear. This is what can give a person what is needed to stand against what may become a chorus crying out in opposition to him or her. The connection to that which is high, which we want to live up to, is what it takes to defy fears and do what no one may expect of you.
Where does it come from, this power to speak and act aright, despite fear? I’ve found comfort in an old saying: “If thou couldst in vision see the man God meant, thou couldst no longer be the man thou art, content.” It’s seeing “in vision,” as it were, what God meant for me to be. It comes with the belief that He sees me in my fears and will be with me, despite everything that seems to the contrary. Really, it’s in seeing him—in a conviction that if this stand is right, he will be with me. If one isn’t a believer in God, then what is the highest one knows? Some person one greatly respects, the approval of the highest thing one knows, some sense of what is most honorable.
Fears, of course, still beleaguer me. But I think many a person has found strength to stand or, if need be, strength to go, or strength to make a leap, or strength to do that which before one had no strength for at all, by looking outside oneself to that which one knows to be highest thing one knows.
For me, that highest thing is the God of the Bible. I read in the Book of Exodus these words which stand out as a promise: “And if he cries out to Me, I will hear, for I am compassionate” (22:27). With such a cry one may find the willingness to stand when otherwise there would be no such thing.
The second lesson, then, that I have taken from my nine years of experience with the Children of God cult is that I needed courage and that too often I lacked it. I remember what I read the in the Bible’s Book of Psalms of what one of the psalmists did when faced with something he greatly feared. He wrote, “In my distress I called upon the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry for His help reached His ears” (Psalm 18:6). It’s the same thing as the passage cited above from Exodus; the Bible has so many passages on this very thing. If it appears so often, it must be pretty important, don’t you think?
A person needs it—courage—if he or she is to stand against a flood of falsehoods dressed up as good, against flatteries and illusions hiding the greatest of dangers, against deceptions and delusions which can eat away at one’s life or ability to flourish in this world.
If one perceives something is amiss, that’s one thing–and a good and vital thing it is; but the wherewithal to act, to do something in the face of such things, requires courage. I have listed it here as the second of the twelve lessons I’ve begun to learn through my cult experience. I listed “Thinking for yourself” as the first, a lesson to do with maintaining one’s integrity. But in truth, courage is needed first, or at least at the same time, if one is to manage not to stop thinking for oneself. So these two lessons go hand in hand—learning the courage to make a stand and standing up for one’s integrity by not ceasing to think for oneself. I can’t say I’ve learned these lessons; I have begun to learn them.
